the institutional dimension to urban governance and ... · the institutional dimension to urban...

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José Luís Crespo*João Cabral*

Análise Social, vol. XLV (197), 2010, 639-662

The institutional dimension to urban governanceand territorial management in the Lisbonmetropolitan area

Approaches to governance have been influential in the design and implementationof urban policies. The state and public administration no longer play the exclusiverole, focusing now on the coordination of interests for achieving collective goals. Theorganisational capacities of the central/regional and local powers are, therefore,critical to urban management efficiency. The article analyses the Lisbon metropolitanarea, looking into practices of planning and governance in terms of (i) the role ofmunicipalities determining patterns of development relative to the central state andpublic companies; (ii) the emergence of municipal and inter-municipal institutions andcompanies in the management and provision of services.

Keywords: governance; territorial planning; metropolitan area; Lisbon.

A dimensão institucional da governança urbana e da gestão doterritório na área metropolitana de LisboaAs abordagens da governança têm vindo a influenciar o desenho e a implementaçãodas políticas urbanas. O Estado e a administração pública deixam de ter o papelexclusivo, concentrando-se na coordenação de interesses e procurando garantir metascolectivas. A capacidade de organização dos poderes central/regional e local é críticapara a eficácia da gestão urbana. Neste sentido, o artigo analisa práticas deplaneamento e governança na área metropolitana de Lisboa em termos (i) do papeldos municípios, determinando padrões de desenvolvimento face ao papel do Estadoe das empresas públicas, e (ii) da emergência de instituições municipais e inter-municipais na gestão e provisão de serviços.

Palavras-chave: governança; gestão territorial, área metropolitana; Lisboa.

INTRODUCTION

Governance is a long-standing term/concept and a still older reality(Pierre & Peters, 2000; Peters, 2002). Societies have always needed someform of orientation and guidance, leadership, and collective management.Variations in political and economic orders have produced different re-

* CIAUD, Faculdade de Arquitectura, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Rua Sá Nogueira,Pólo Universitário do Alto da Ajuda,1349-055 Lisboa, Portugal. e-mail: [email protected] [email protected]

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José Luís Crespo, João Cabral

sponses to fundamental issues relating to just how to guide and structuresociety and how best to meet the range of challenges resulting and generatethe respective responses needed. In this sense, governance is no constant,as it tends to change to the extent that needs and values also change.

The usual responses to such questions were drafted by the state, butwhatever solutions may have proven effective within one particular contextsoon turned out to be ineffective with the passage of time. The government/governance process represents a continuation of the joint set of policies ofadministrative adaptations and activities in reaction to changes in society, interms of what is designed to represent a “tailoring” of the means of devel-opment and the achievement of collective goals (Peters, 2002).

The adaptative capacity of contemporary governance questions the as-sumptions upon which are based, and which regulate, those approachesdeemed “traditional”, specifically as regards the centrality of state interven-tion and public authority in government. The notion of a single locus ofsovereignty and a hierarchical structure to the governance system no longercorresponds to reality.

As a concept, governance emerges out of the shared conviction that,across various levels and degrees, “the traditional structures of authority [...]failed” (Kooiman, 1993, p. 251) and that the modern state is now forced intoa cycle of re-legitimation. The traditional conceptualisation of government,recognising the state as the most prominent actor at play in public politics,is considered as an outdated approach for the organisation of social inter-actions. These perspectives on governance, instead, seek to aggregate “thetotality of theoretical conceptions on governing” (Kooiman, 2003, p. 4) andare considered an effective “process of orientation for society” (Peters &Pierre, 2003, p. 2).

However, there are no replacements or generally accepted alterations toguide and structure these new assumptions and, consequently, these havebecome even more problematic than before, for both the academic worldand practitioners.

Against this backdrop, this article seeks to discuss the concept of gov-ernance across its various facets, in terms of both meanings and perspec-tives. Another interpretative component relates a range of phenomena andchanges taking place in society with the concept of governance itself. We thenmove on to emphasise those governance perspectives that have most mouldedthe thinkings on urban policy. Finally, for the Lisbon metropolitan area, weanalyse governance and territorial management, illustrating two critical aspects:(i) the question of its role and its implications for public administration deci-sions at the central/regional and local levels in terms of territorial planning anddevelopment; (ii) the emergence of municipal and inter-municipal institutionsand companies with responsibilities for the management of areas and serv-ices within the scope of local administrative competences, with the goal of

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The institutional dimension of governance in the Lisbon metropolitan area

promoting flexibility, especially contractual and institutional interaction togenerate greater profitability in providing these services.

GOVERNANCE: THE ADAPTABILITY OF A CONCEPT CONTAININGVARIOUS MEANINGS AND PERSPECTIVES

Governance is a very loose term, an “umbrella” concept, sometimes badlyinterpreted due to the multiple meanings attributed to it (Pierre, 2005). Indeed,one reason for its popularity is its ability — contrary to the more restrictiveterm governing/government — to cover the whole range of institutions andrelations involving the governing process (Peters & Pierre, 2000).

Initially, the concept was closely tied up with that of governing/govern-ment. In this limited sense, its utilisation for a long period was restricted tothe juridical and constitutional field to describe the running of state affairsor the management of an institution characterised by a multiplicity of actors,where the expression “government” seemed excessively restrictive. Morerecently, a majority of authors have related the concept with distinct analyti-cal frameworks (Stoker, 1998). It has mushroomed across the output andvocabulary of the social sciences as a term/concept in fashion in variousfields: politics, economics, and international relations, among others. Theideas associated are fairly diverse even if only referring to good governance,international, European, regional, metropolitan, or urban governance, multi-level governance, vertical, and horizontal governance — to mention but afew of the examples. Depending on interlocutors, their fields of activity orresearch or, more simply, their awareness, one or many of these possiblemeanings may be evoked (Borlini, 2004).

This change in the meaning of government, associated with governance,falls within the framework of new governing processes. Governance refersto self-organisation, characterised by the interdependence of inter-organisa-tional networks, recourse to exchanges in which the rules of the gameendow some autonomy in relation to the state (Rhodes, 1997).

Recently, Bevir et al. (2003, p. 45) defined governance as “a change inthe nature or meaning of government”. Correspondingly, recent years haveseen the concept “break free” of the shackles imposed by the aforemen-tioned limitations to take on a broader meaning and field of application. Thisparadigmatic character enables its deployment across various fields.Kooiman (2003) identified no less than twelve different meanings1 (depend-

1 Minimum state, corporative governance, new public management, “good governance”,socio-cybernetic governance, self-organising networks, resource management-self-regulatingsocieties, global governance, economic governance, governance and governability, Europeangovernance-multi-level governance, participative governance.

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ing on the respective field of usage), with only one set of common denomi-nators — taking into consideration the main institutional spheres (the state,market, and community). This broad range of meanings becomes apparentin the way the branches of the social sciences draw on different and, onoccasion, distinct interpretations (Kjaer, 2004).

The modes of socio-political governance always result from interactionbetween the public and the private. Interactive socio-political governanceinvolves defining the “tone” and establishing the political-social conditionsfor the development of new interactive models that regulate through co-management, co-leadership, and co-orientation (Kooiman, 1993). Govern-ance thus approximates the term coordination through the existence ofcoordinated actions dependent on contingent attitudes or institutional mecha-nisms for coordinating and concerting actors (Scharpf, 2001).

According to Milward (2004, p. 239), governance is a broad-reachingterm (and not only governmental) concerning the conditions for creatingrules for collective actions, very often including private sector actors. Theessence of governance is its focus on leadership and management mecha-nisms (subventions, contracts, and agreements), which are not exclusivelyassociated with either the entity or possible sanctions handed down by thegovernment. These mechanisms or tools are deployed to connect the net-works of actors operating across the different domains of public policies.One empirical issue is the extent of these operations, that is, just whatautonomy do they enjoy, or are they state led. Governance means thinkingabout the means of orienting the economy and society, as well as the meansof attaining specific collective goals in which the state plays a fundamentalrole, focusing on priorities and defining objectives (Peters & Pierre, 2000).

More recently, another conception portrays how networking governancecreates more opportunities for individuals to participate in political decisionmaking processes and thereby become able to build social and politicalcapital, as well as self-governance competences (Sorensen, 2002, 2005;Sorensen & Torfing, 2003).

In Europe, in recent years, the notion of governance, as a challenge tomanagement and coordination, was the subject of widespread debate, bothscholarly and political: (i) governance taking a type of paradigmatic format,as a conceptual framework for posing a series of important questions aboutsociety but which, as this is posed in pre-theoretical terms, proves difficultto encapsulate (Stoker, 1998; Le Galès, 2003); (ii) other authors have al-ready posited governance as a theory (Pierre & Peters, 2000; Pierre, 2000and 2005) — highlighting that while there is no complete theory of govern-ance — this does constitute an analytical framework or, at the very least,a set of criteria that define those “objects worthy of study” (Stoker, 1998),within a perspective on governance that moves on from the assumption of

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institutions fully and exclusively controlling urban management and ap-proaching them as a variable (Pierre, 2005); (iii) in its normative dimension,governance is essentially bound up with a norm or an instrument of publicutility, presented as some “miraculous” solution, for example, in the analysisof public policies in accordance with those management trends seeking toraise the effectiveness and efficiency of public actions and that perceivesgovernance as a tool for broadening participation in decision making proc-esses (Pierre, 2005); and (iv) governance from an analytical perspectiveframed in support of an ideological discourse and as an insight for readingthe transformations in public action, in particular public territorial actioncontributing to the new types of leadership/orientation that have been putinto practice in recent decades across various domains or territories, bring-ing about the (de)institutionalisation of public policy analysis through focus-ing on a set of actors participating in the construction and treatment ofcollective problems (Leresche, 2002).

GOVERNANCE: RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE CONCEPT AND THEFIELD

We now proceed to set out some hypotheses on both the developmentand successfulness of governance from the theoretical point of view and onthe relationship between the concept and the set of phenomena it incorpo-rates. In comparative empirical studies, the majority of interpretations are notsufficiently precise for differentiating between new forms of governance andtraditional forms of government. Despite these divergences, there is a rela-tive consensus around a certain number of core points.

There are countless studies on governance that effectively “dress upmutton as lamb” as many of the practices currently grouped under thegovernance concept were previously analysed from other perspectives, suchas regulatory theories in terms of public and private partnerships, industrialdistricts, the study of networks, management and organisation, and the newpublic management (Jessop, 1998; Le Galès, 1995; Borlini, 2004).

Governance and government are sometimes approached not as distinctentities but as two poles on a continuum of different types of government.While the extreme form of government was the “strong state” in the era of“big government” (Pierre & Peters, 2000, p. 25), then the correspondingextremity in the form of governance essentially represents a self-organisationand coordination of the social actor network, in a sense of resisting govern-ment leadership and management (Rhodes, 1997). The connotation of gov-ernment and governance as the extremities of some theoretical continuum is,however, unlikely to prove sufficiently sensitive for capturing changes in theform and function of governance.

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Part of the recent literature on governance stresses the importance ofmulti-level governmental structures to the dissemination of “new” forms ofgovernance. Its analytical focus is rather diffuse, concentrating primarily onthe European Union (EU) level and without paying due attention to the wayin which these “new” forms of governance are (or might be) implementedat the member state and lower levels. Pierre & Peters (2000) hold that thestate is losing its role as “director” with control displaced to international andregional organisations, such as the EU, autonomous and municipal regions,to international corporations, non-governmental organisations, and otherprivate or semi-private actors.

There is a close connection between the development and application ofthe governance concept and the social changes that have been taking placein recent decades with profound transformations impacting upon westernsocieties. This has led to the identification of a crisis in governability acrossvarious levels of government institutions, in effect, whether at the state ormunicipal level, losing their capacity for action and for dealing with theongoing transformations in society. The processes of economic globalisation,European unification, the movement toward post-Fordist economic-socialrelations, demographic transformations, the added complexity of societiesdriven by their respective fragmentation, the unpredictability of the future,the lack of connectivity between weakened political authorities and citizens,and undermining — in terms of both its financial sustainability and legitimacy— the capitalist welfare system all go some way to explaining the failure oftraditional models of public policies. The loss of this capacity to orientate ledto a conviction that the state needs to alter the culture of its civil service(Pollitt, 2000) or even delegate policies to actors beyond the state structure.Some authors conclude that both the opacity around the state (Rhodes,1997) and the formation of networks at various levels raise the complexitycharacterising modern society. All these facets render it increasingly difficultfor the national state to enact its role as the unique regulator of the economyand social services, and increasingly demand that means of coordination andcooperation are established between institutions, territorial levels, and differ-ing actors (Le Galès, 2003).

There is a tendency in the political science literature to associate govern-ment with regulation, while governance is frequently seen as a demonstrationof the appearance of new political instruments (Zito et al., 2003). Govern-ance is thus characterised by the rising utilisation of non-regulatory politicalinstruments. These are proposed, designed, and executed by non-state par-ticipants, working either in conjunction with state actors or independently.We find here the concept of governance presented as a useful tool fordecision making, nominating, identifying, and, when studying a new situa-tion, characterised by a multiplicity of regulatory forms and the fragmenta-

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tion of power between the various layers that now make up the political-administrative, economic, and social reality.

GOVERNANCE AND URBAN POLICIES

In recent years, theories on governance have shaped thinking on urbanpolicies (Dowding, 1996; Goldsmith, 1997; Le Galès, 2006; Stoker, 1998).These approaches are primarily concerned with the coordination and mergerof public and private resources, which represents the strategy adopted, toa greater or lesser extent, by local authorities across Western Europe. Thegovernance theories seek to aggregate the totality of theoretical conceptsaround governing and are deemed to be an effective process for orientingand structuring a society (Kooiman, 2003; Peters & Pierre, 2003), referringto processes of regulation, coordination, and control (Rhodes, 1997), ana-lysing processes of coordination and regulation in which the main concernis the role of the government in a governance process understood as anempirical issue (Kooiman, 1993; Rhodes, 1996 and 1997). This also incor-porates all types of guidance mechanisms related to public policy processes,involving various types of actors, with a variety of actions associated withdifferent participants and with consequences for governance (Kickert et al.,1997). Public policy is formulated and implemented through a large numberof formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, and processes commonlyreferred to as governance (Pierre, 2000; Pierre & Peters, 2000).

In cities, especially metropolitan areas and what are designated urbanregions, new configurations have emerged in the relationships between thestate and local power. These alterations in the political and administrativelandscape have taken on specific characteristics and dimensions, in whichthe problems to be resolved are so important to the public authorities thatthey generate fields in which new forms of public action may be tested butwhich depend ever more upon contractual negotiations between institutionswith diverse and different statutes and purposes (Gaudin, 1999). In thisinstitutional and political entanglement driving the major agglomerations, oneof the overriding objectives of public policy is to establish scenarios forexchanging and negotiating between institutions staking a claim to legiti-mately holding part of the general interest and endowed with a proportionof the political resources (technical, financial, juridical, budgetary resources,etc.) essential to all public action. Planning and urban professionals and localauthorities have been transformed into nodes in an institutional network. Ac-cording to certain analysts, this capacity to establish inter-institutional relation-ships is a crucial resource in the competition between metropolitan areas. Theinstitutionalisation of collective actions seems to represent an issue of equal or

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greater importance than the spatial framework of the metropolises, and thusthe social, political, and economic objects are greatly fragmented.

Governance formalised a reconfiguration of the relationships between theinstitutions and actors participating in the production and implementation ofpolicies applied in metropolises. This largely rests upon processes of restruc-turing modern states and upon the increasingly important role now attributedto non-state actors and institutions in the regulation of societies.

Within the contexts of the territorial and social fragmentation bound upwith processes of internationalisation and the post-industrial nature of citiesperceived within the framework of urban governance, we may encounter theopportunities and capacities for urban actors to put policies into practice, inparticular for economic development, but also in terms of urban planning,through the capacity to integrate diverse social and political groups andproduce shared visions around urban development.

Governance results from the types of “arrangement” that actors build up,developing a triple capacity for action, integration, and adhesion, whichresults in the capacity for representation. In this sense, a more sociologicalperception of urban governance is defined. On the one hand, this reflects thecapacity to integrate the voicing of local interests, organisations and socialgroups, and on the other hand, there is the capacity for external represen-tation, to engage in, to a greater or lesser extent, unified relationships withthe market, with the state, other cities, and other levels of government.

In terms of the state, the urban governance institutions are themselvesrestricted by factors such as the organisation of its constitutional and legalconditions and other types of responsibilities ascribed to public organisa-tions. Despite urban governance theories providing a new approach forcomparative analyses of urban policies, recognition also needs to be givento the importance of the national context in which this urban governance isenacted. National politics remains a powerful factor for explaining variousaspects of urban policies, including the urban economy, urban politicalconflicts, and the strategies in effect for mobilising local resources. The statecontinues to effectively limit local political choices, remaining the key entityin national sub-affairs (Pierre, 2000). The national state is today, more thanever, influential in determining the way in which municipal councils andregions respond to the challenges of globalisation (Harding, 1997), as wellas the internationalisation of the economy with the state identified as thecritical determinant in local political processes (Strom, 1996). Analysis of theorganisational capacities of local power structures is essential to any under-standing of urban management. This happens because these organisationsare among the core participants in governing. From the governance perspec-tive, the approach to the core questions is focused upon the role of localpower in urban management (Pierre, 1999).

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GOVERNANCE AND TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT INMETROPOLITAN AREAS

These issues take on particular relevance when applied to the governmentand territorial planning of metropolitan areas in European Union memberstates associated with the imperatives of competitiveness and cohesion ex-plicit in various community declarations and directives (see Faludi, 2006 and2007). As locations concentrating both wealth and knowledge, as well assources of innovation, the metropolitan areas are crucial actors in economicgrowth and the future prosperity of European society. They are also gen-erally, and particularly in the cities of southern Europe, the sites of conflictbetween the different interests and local powers (municipalities) that tend topolarise development options that might be taken up by inter-municipal andmetropolitan structures ending up controlled by the national level, losingcapacities for mobilising local and regional interests. It is within this dualdebate over the redefinition of competences at the local level, in terms of itsinteraction with transversal competences at a higher level and within con-texts of metropolitan competitiveness, overlapping interests and jurisdictions,that the role of governance gains meaning and pertinence.

The question is explicitly raised in the European Green Book on TerritorialCohesion when referring to the need for cooperation so as to guarantee thatEU territorial cohesion objectives are met and when considering how best toproceed with future decisions on community policies — “Improving territorialcohesion implies better coordination between sectoral and territorial policiesand improved coherence between territorial interventions” (EC, 2008).

The concept of territorial cohesion, and consequently the means of guar-anteeing its policy objectives, however, are not clear, as may be seen in theresults of the public debate promoted by the European Commission2.

The differing concerns of entities and institutions representing countriesfrom the north and the south of Europe are renowned. Faludi (2006 and2007) picked up this theme when referring to a “European model of society”and particularly in the case of France (but extendible to other countrieswithin the “family” of Napoleonic planning) expressing concerns over acultural dimension (in contrast to the “Anglo-Saxon” model) to the territoryand its planning supported by a system that implies, for its efficient func-tioning, an appropriate level of interaction between the differing territorialscopes and levels of responsibility.

“Agglomérations” and “pays” are areas characterized by geographic,economic, cultural or social cohesion, where public and private actors can

2 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/terco/contrib_en.htm.

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be mobilized around a territorial project (projet de territoire). There is a linkwith regulatory planning in that the pays are invited to formulate new-stylestructure plans, called “Schéma du cohérence territoriale”. Clearly, in Frencheyes, the sense of purpose generated by participation in territorial projects isimportant [Faludi, 2006, p. 673].

The question lies in the means to establish the conditions for this inter-action to take place. In the debate over European Territorial Cohesion, thecontribution submitted by the Portuguese Geography Association, itself theresult of wide-reaching discussion carried out at the national level by thisassociation, made the following appropriate statement:

Given the finding that the Portuguese legal framework is in itselfsufficient, the development of new forms of governance should begin byapproaching the lack of coordination between the entities responsible foreach sector and between scales of intervention that still remain and that havehindered the emergence of new behaviours and the strengthening of actorparticipation3.

This lack of coordination between entities and jurisdictions reflects thetradition of intervention with public decision makers located at differentinstitutional levels engaged in the same territory. The relationships betweenthe different authorities are essentially based upon shared responsibilities anda division of competences. Meanwhile, the greater autonomy of local powerin relation to the state and a European openness promoted changes. Thereis now a multiplication of contractual relationships between the state andlocal power and the development of direct relationships between local levelsof power and European Union institutions. Thus, the challenge arises out ofconciliating national and European priorities and local initiatives and findingnew means of interrelating policies enacted across different scales.

GOVERNANCE AND TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT IN THE LISBONMETROPOLITAN AREA

The case of the Lisbon metropolitan area (LMA) is a paradigmaticexample of national/regional relational problems, given that there is no electedand representative body at the metropolitan level as there is at the municipallevel. This problem is compounded by the prevailing condition of havingestablished a metropolitan area inheriting a non-representative system of

3 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/terco/pdf/4_organisation/134_1_apg_pt.pdf

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government with the absence of a planning structure. That means there wasno legal framework in effect for urbanisation processes and projects beyondthose undertaken by public initiative, which were furthermore already limitedin scope to local councils.

Correspondingly, the growth of Lisbon and its urban region did nothappen in accordance with the regulatory models and standards of themajority of European cities. The mode of regulation structuring the interac-tion between urbanisation and social and economic development was, in thecase of Portugal, peripheral and incomplete (Rodrigues, 1988). The concernshown regarding city planning as from the late 19th century (for example,the expansion with the construction of the Avenidas Novas) and the socialstate intervention in the 1940s, did not extend out to the wider and moreperipheral areas of the city, nor was it then integrated into any coherentsocial and economic infrastructural model.

Hence, the LMA experienced urbanisation, intensely and extensively, asa response to the effective demand created by a peripheral model of indus-trialisation, with processes more illegal than legal, stretching out along themain axes of transport and communication, taking up large areas surround-ing the traditional centres through processes allocating plots of land breakingup large estate holdings (Cabral, 2004). This process was not complementedby equivalent investment in terms of the conditions for social reproductiongiven the low role of internal consumption and public infrastructures foreconomic development.

The situation changed significantly from the end of the 1970s with theintense dynamics of urbanisation overwhelming the response capacity of themunicipal planning system, representative but still incipient and without anyappropriate interrelationship with the decisions handed down by the centraladministrative entities, in particular the public sector companies responsiblefor major infrastructures. What happens is not very different to the problemsfacing many urban regions or metropolitan areas under scenarios of devel-opment conditioned by the imperatives for interaction between decisionmaking levels, actors, and institutions with different agendas and prioritiesand within which the local level is normally the weakest partner.

The relative fragility of the local level is the result of its proximity tousers and citizens and a more direct dependence on market dynamics (inland and housing) contrary to the concessionaries and public service provid-ers and higher level political bodies, less immune to conjunctural fluctua-tions, nevertheless remaining strongly interested in the benefits deriving fromhigher land values and the visibility and profile generated by viable majorurban projects and infrastructural works.

Given its inherent nature defined by functional interdependencies andexchanges, the management of the LMA territory, with 19 municipalities,

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requires a regional administration with effective authority, competences,resources, and the legitimacy to tackle and resolve the complex problemsfacing the region. However, this metropolitan institution, founded in 1991,is endowed with neither the competences nor the resources, partly due tobeing an unelected body, and has not demonstrated the capacities necessaryto deal with the challenges of metropolitan governability.

In this way, governance, given its characteristics, represents a greatchallenge for strategic modernisation, especially in the case of the LMA, itsregions and sub-regions of extensive urban and suburban concentration,with a deficit in territorial planning, excessive state bureaucracy, a lack ofcoordination of the means available (public and private) and horizontal andvertical interaction, social autonomy, etc.

It is known that between putting forward a specific project/plan andactual implementation, a complex bureaucratic process has to be negotiated,with intermediary decisions, rulings, authorisations, regulations, etc., whichfrequently combine to induce project delays or even render it non-viable.This all takes place within a universe in which various responsible partici-pants, the state (whether centralised, dispersed, or decentralised), civil so-ciety, and others, intervene. One of the greatest obstacles to effective gov-ernability/governance may be identified in the institutional labyrinth andoverlapping competences present within any planning process. One recentstudy4 totalled no less than 180 public entities at work in the Lisbon region,in areas as different as territorial administration, regional development, andtourism, among many others.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN TERRITORIALPLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

The results of a research project undertaken by a number of schools ofthe Technical University of Lisbon on the dynamics of localisation andtransformation of the LMA region clarify the importance of the municipallevel regarding central state decisions and investments in planning the met-ropolitan territory5.

4 http://www.gestaoestrategica.ccdr-lvt.pt/1056/estrategia-regional:-lisboa-2020.htm5 Project Totta/UTL/01(2004-2008) — Dinâmicas de Localização, Transformação do

Território e Novas Centralidades na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa: que papel para aspolíticas públicas? Project financed by the College of Integrated Studies - TUL with theparticipation of four Technical University of Lisbon — Clara Mendes (FA) (coord.), RomanaXerez (coord. ISCSP), Manuel Brandão Alves (coord. ISEG — CIRIUS), Fernando Nunes daSilva (coord. IST — CESUR) and João Cabral (coord. FA).

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This study cross-referenced two types of information: the zoning clas-sification proposed in the different Municipal Land Use Plans (Plano Direc-tor Municipal — PDM) associated with patterns of land use and the builtenvironment registered through to 1992 (the point in time when many PDMsfor LMA municipalities came into effect) and between 1992 and 2001. Landuse patterns were based on the identification and evaluation of the variousclasses of utilisation set out in the PDMs resulting from the dominant pre-vailing land use types.

The existence of various different classifications for land use in LMAmunicipal PDMs resulted in the development of a methodology for theanalysis and definition of common criteria, aggregating land use classifica-tions with similar characteristics. This relative lack of coherence in terms oftypology and zoning criteria partially stems from the temporal differences inestablishing the plan and the duration of drafting, ratifying, and publishingthe respective PDMs, which were produced by highly diversified teams.

The various classifications were subject to analysis and comparison aswell as their respective constituent criteria. This led to the identification ofa set of predominant patterns in accordance with the characteristics of landoccupation practices across the LMA. This analysis focused upon an ex-tremely complex reality and it was therefore necessary to carry outaggregations and simplifications to attain the analytical objectives.

The consolidated urban environment corresponds to those territories witha planned and structured dense utilisation of the available urban space. Theproposed area for urban development is standardised in all the plans, settingout large areas for urban expansion defined by the urban perimeters of thevarious centres, forecasting the strong urban growth identified in the map(Figure 1).

The areas defined in the PDM as tecido urbano consolidado (urbanareas) in all municipalities is equal to around 10% of the LMA total area, withthe greatest incidence attributed to municipalities on the north side of theTagus, where this percentage rises to 13.5%. This greater density is con-nected to the LMA’s urbanisation process, which first began around thehinterland of the national capital — Lisbon — supported by the first railwaylines to Sintra and Cascais. Regarding the urban areas, the extent of thedifference across LMA municipalities ranges from 2.4% in Alcochete, up tothe 47.3% in Lisbon.

The filling out of the constructed space in urban areas reaches an averagelevel of around 17% in the LMA, with no major disparities between munici-palities. Only two cases stand out, Lisbon with the highest occupancy rate(30.3%) and, at the opposite extreme, Azambuja (4.5%), where the actualbuilt area remains at a residual level.

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PDM spatial classifications for the LMA

Source: Project Totta/UTL/01 (2004-2008) — Dinâmicas de Localização,Transformação do Território e Novas Centralidades na Área Metropolitana de Lisboa: quepapel para as políticas públicas?

The areas defined in PDMs as espaço urbanizável (urban developmentareas) across all municipalities account for around 5% of the total LMAwithout much difference between the Northern and Southern municipalities.The highest values, in terms of area, are in Oeiras (26.5%), Almada(38.5%), Barreiro (21.8%), and Amadora (11.4%). On the other hand, wefind that the lowest percentage of urban development area is in Lisbon,which is understandable given the level of occupation and consolidation ofurban areas.

The density, in terms of area, of buildings in urban development areasrepresents around 5% of the total LMA, again with little difference be-tween municipalities. The distribution of occupation over the two periodsdisplays some similarity (2.7% up to 1992 and 2.4% between 1992 and2001). These low levels of urban occupation, recorded up to 2001, call intoquestion the potential and forecast urban growth anticipated by the majorityof the PDMs.

[FIGURE 1]

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Furthermore, even in spaces with restrictions and limitations on con-struction, such as agricultural, forestry, or natural areas, we find some fairlydense incidences of construction where dispersed urbanisation has takenplace.

Given these findings, an evaluation of the implementation of this genera-tion of PDM finds, in general terms, an over-scaling of the land classifiedas urban/urban development areas, with spaces under this classificationbeing far from necessary for urban expansion. This results from the exces-sively large PDM urban perimeters and extensive areas for urban growthpunctuated by disconnected urban development projects. Thus, we encoun-ter here an uncoordinated urban expansion in which land eligible for urbandevelopment remains vacant for long periods of time maintaining high landprices, effectively ensuring that it remains ineligible for swift intervention bythe local authorities.

This overview reflects the role of administrative practises and the insti-tutional framework regulating land use dynamics and changes. Thus, terri-torial transformations have been poorly influenced by planning as the toolsavailable have proven to be non-operational, hence demonstrating the inef-fectiveness of traditional rigid planning instruments.

Instead of expressing a model of territorial organisation, the PDMs reflectcompromises, driven by the overlapping wishes of central administration andprivate interests and running counter to the objective of ensuring territorialurban coherence.

The project conclusions highlight the fact that the planning system, basedon zoning, had a limited impact in the metropolitan territory. Additionallythere was a lack of coordination among the different local systems. One ofthe aspects that potentially contributed to this lack of coordination andefficiency was the non-operational implementation of a Regional Develop-ment Plan6.

Another project conclusion was that, as one of the objectives of munici-pal policies is development control, these have not proven efficient, since itwas primarily the infrastructures, especially road building, overseen by cen-tral authorities, that conditioned urban development, serving as guidelines forthe location and development of new urban areas, equipment, and infrastruc-tures. Within this scenario, the municipalities have played a minor role con-trolling urban development, which became dependent on the effectiveness of

6 At the LMA, tenuous steps have been taken in terms of governance, which are reflectedin the relationship established between the CCDR-LVT and the municipal authorities, andspecifically in the implementation of cooperation protocols that were agreed based upon theRegional Development Plan PROT-AML guidelines and their transposition into territorialplanning instruments, especially the PDMs.

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public companies, especially roads and infrastructures structuring the urbanexpansion process (Cabral et al., 2007).

This is the result of the confrontation between two logics of interventionthat are associated with distinct agendas across two levels of intervention,the central/regional and municipal. Table 1 identifies the most significantdifferences between agendas with implications for urban development.

The agendas for the national/regional/metropolitan and municipal levelsin territorial management and planning

Source: Cabral (2006).

Thus, the challenge for metropolitan governance relates to the potentialsynergies in institutional and operational agendas and to the capacity to fosterthe interrelationship between the macro-micro scales: strong institutions atthe macro level and highly flexible and operational at the micro level (Portaset al., 2003, p. 39). However, the institutional and operational capacitynecessary for the design and implementation of the appropriate policiesraises other questions, especially in terms of ensuring compatibility betweenjurisdictions and the democratic legitimacy of the “trans-municipal” level,“altering the approach and understanding of the different planning functions,capacity for innovation and additional competences” (ibid, p. 208).

FLEXIBILITY IN LOCAL ADMINISTRATION MANAGEMENT:MUNICIPAL COMPANIES

The conclusions and data gathered in another recent research project onthe LMA highlighted the emergence of institutions, municipal and inter-municipal companies with local government, and management responsibili-ties with the objective of bringing about greater flexibility and institutional

[TABLE 1]

Political

Procedural

Formal

National/regional/metropolitan agendaDimension

Rationalisation and efficiencyof public investments

Legal and institutional frame-work

Coherence and profitability ofenvironmental and infra-structural networks

Municipal agenda

Conformity to market dynamics, commu-nity pressures and to budget and urbanproperty taxes

Land use control, zoning, public participa-tion

Conformity between land use, propertyrights, and public and private interests

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interaction to ensure that services are provided on a financially viable basis.Within this context, local powers have sought to find new ways of managingpublic assets and interests as a general rule by handing over the directmanagement to more business-like regimes, seeking out partnerships withother municipalities or other public and private entities. These relationshipsbetween municipalities are marked out by broadening the systems of coop-eration and exchange and by heightening competition.

The emergence of complementary municipal administrative structuresonly made sense in the wake of the April 1974 Revolution and the 1976Constitution, with the formalisation of a political power with autonomousadministration. Thereafter, the municipalities have been taking on an increas-ing role in the development of their territories, gradually building up theircompetences across very diverse fields.

In Portugal, a process of administrative decentralisation took place in theearly 1980s creating the opportunity for Portuguese municipalities to adopta private sector approach to public services in the early 1990s7. The studyproduced by Crespo (2008) shows how municipal companies have swiftlybecome the most common form for councils to achieve a diverse range ofgoals. With new legislation, what was once the exception — that is, com-panies with public capital replacing municipal departments for the provisionof public services — soon became the norm.

At the end of 1999, there were 25 municipal companies on mainlandPortugal, with 60% of these concentrated in the two metropolitan areas ofLisbon and Porto (by 2008, this percentage had dropped by around a half).However, as from 2000, the locations of municipal companies began toexpand to take in other municipalities in inland Portugal, particularly in thenorth of the country.

In 2001, 269 of the 308 municipalities — thus, 88% of the total — haddirect holdings in the capital of public and private companies. Portuguesemunicipalities held business interests in 114 municipal and inter-municipalcompanies, 187 limited companies, 58 company shares, 19 banking institu-tions, 35 cooperatives, and 21 foundations — a total of 434 entities.

7 After various attempts, with a range of legislative packages for establishing a legalframework for the founding of municipal companies, Law No. 58/98 was approved enablingsuch entities to be set up (Silva, 2000). This legal framework was revised with the enactmentof Law 53-F/2006. The legislation passed under these auspices provided scope for councilsto participate in different management models: Associações de Municípios (Municipal Asso-ciations), Áreas Metropolitanas e Comunidades Urbanas (Metropolitan and CommunityUrban Areas), Fundações Municipais (Municipal Foundations), Sociedades Anónimas (Lim-ited Companies), whether by shares or cooperatives, while Municipal Companies proved tobe the most common option.

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Sources: Portuguese Association of Municipal Companies, Diário da República, GeneralDirectorate of Local Councils, General Inspectorate of Finance.

According to the data available from the General Directorate of LocalAuthorities, in September 2005, there were 114 municipal and inter-munici-pal companies. Despite it being legally possible to found municipal compa-nies since 1998, in fact, it was only in 2000 that numbers increased rapidly,with the formation of 31 companies (27.2% of a total of 114 companies).In 2001, there was a slight slowdown (28 new companies), however, inconjunction with the previous year, this two year period accounts for theformation of around 52% of existing companies.

In August 2008, there were 167 municipal companies on mainland Por-tugal of which 43% were located in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon andPorto and in the main Portuguese cities corresponding to areas of greatestpopulation. There is no location pattern to these municipal companies, dis-persed across the country, except a slightly greater percentage in the northof the country (Figure 3).

Regarding a classification of the services provided by municipal compa-nies, they are primarily linked to sport, recreation, and leisure (27%), culture

Municipal Companies, Portugal (1999) Municipal Companies, Portugal (2008)

[FIGURE 2]

[FIGURE 3]

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(20%), tourism (15%), and housing (4%). The idea of municipalities handingover municipal services to municipal companies did not have widespreadimpact, as shown by the reduced importance of solid waste disposal, watersupply, and sanitation companies. Municipal companies are mainly associ-ated with the management and maintenance of infrastructures (swimmingpools and theatre, amongst others), particularly in the municipalities outsidethe main urban areas.

In late 1999, 60% of these municipal companies were concentrated in thetwo metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto (in 2008, this percentagedropped by about half) with 44% located in the Lisbon metropolitan area.

Sources: Portuguese Association of Municipal Companies, Diário da República, GeneralDirectorate of Local Councils, General Inspectorate of Finances.

As mentioned above, both nationally and in the LMA, the creation andexpansion of municipal companies is associated with the 1988 legislation,resulting in the greatest surge in LMA municipal companies dating to 2000and 2001. The greatest concentration of municipal companies is in thecapital, the municipality of Lisbon, where the density and diversity of prob-lems is more acute, thus driving the need for new forms of management.The areas of intervention of municipal companies differ across the countrybut the most common are road transport and infrastructures (Crespo, 2008).

The reasons leading to local councils opting to set up a municipal com-pany are not always apparent. Above all, there seem to be casuistic reasons

Municipal Companies, LMA (1999) Municipal Companies, LMA (2008)

[FIGURE 4]

[FIGURE 5]

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of a political nature8 with personal attitudes guiding the choice in favour ofone model or another, particularly when the entities are set up resulting fromthe direct initiative of the local authority. The municipal companies may alsobe established as a type of “cloaked” privatisation of municipal services. Inpractice, in the majority of cases, setting up municipal companies has meantlittle more than a transfer of competences of municipal services or depart-ments along with their respective employees, which does not always resultin their subsequent abolition.

The juridical status of municipal companies may represent an alternativeto direct public management, and this delegated management may result inlevels of efficiency equivalent to the private sector. However, this should inno way be perceived as a unique solution for the modernisation of localpublic services, as there remain countless opportunities for such moderni-sation to be carried out through the introduction of quality systems intopublic services. Another observation resulting from the information gatheredenables us to state that it is still too early to provide any evaluation of theperformance of this solution, especially in comparison with other publicmanagement models. For example, the question of the pricing of the servicesprovided is a crucial factor in the decision chosen as regards the differentmanagement. In some municipal companies, the tariffs stay above averagein comparison with neighbouring municipalities, while in other situations thereverse holds true (Silva, 2000).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of typologies in governance studies reveals a broad spec-trum of configurations. The “governance without government” approachargues that the direction of society on different levels increasingly dependson the interaction of networks of public and private sector actors that areto a large extent beyond the influence and control of central states (Rhodes,1996 and 1997). Another approach accepts a central state that retains gen-eral primacy in core processes (Gilpin, 2001). A third view promotes a moreparticipative style of government, although this does not mean a less pow-erful government even if in its nominal function — through the concept ofsteering — the state is restricted to subordinate positions (Kooiman, 2003).

8 As shown in Figures 4 and 5, municipal companies are concentrated among themunicipalities on the north bank of the LMA. Municipalities on the south bank are almostexclusively left wing in outlook (Communist Party) contrary to the north bank in whichparties of the centre-left/centre (Socialist Party and Social Democrat Party) predominate. Itwould seem that it is above all casuistic reasons of a political nature that influence andstructure the implementation of new forms of municipal management.

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Hence, the differentiation between government and governance remainssomewhat ambiguous, as there are those who affirm that the managementof a particular community is “a responsibility for all members, groups andsectors” (Kooiman, 1999) while for others there is a certain susceptibility toabsorb governance into conventional aspects of governing. Governance maybe inclusive to the extent that it dilutes the border between the two concepts(government/governance).

The changes in the styles of governing involve corresponding changes tothe instruments deployed as well as the makeup of the governing class. Thechanges in the content and targets for government are the clearest transfor-mations. This change in solutions to basic issues became evident during the1980s and 1990s in the majority of Western European and North Americancountries, under neo-liberal ideas on the role of the state, with a significantreduction in public sector activities.

The governing of territories, traditionally led by the public powers in acentralised and normative fashion, has undergone accelerated mutations in-duced by the very evolution of society. Indeed, this new role raises seriouschallenges to the way central administration is internally organised and howit articulates with its surroundings and in terms of restructuring and co-operation, promoting an organisational culture based on dialogue and thesurrender of old bureaucratic instruments for control and communication.

Responding to the challenges of contemporary regional (and metropoli-tan) governance is a necessary condition for the success of the Lisbon 2020Regional Strategy9. However, it is necessary to have a clear understandingof the impact of socio-political processes on the governance of territories ingeneral and to define a framework for institutional interaction in accordancewith the administrative and regional civil society realities, as demonstrated bythe study on the role of the different levels of intervention in LMA urbantransformations, in particular.

The challenges to public power require the development and putting intopractice of new institutional means of intervention. This extends far beyondthe replacement of classic modes of public action and political control toinclude the integration of new procedures, producing new knowledge, andorganising the services differently in order to ensure the effective manage-ment of public affairs. The emerging role of municipal and inter-municipalcompanies in the LMA illustrates these trends representing new perspectiveson territorial management.

We should above all emphasise that public action should be based uponthe alignment of all partners to the territorial project. This involves establish-ing procedures fostering exchanges between all parties, tackling shared

9 http://www.gestaoestrategica.ccdr-lvt.pt/1056/estrategia-regional:-lisboa-2020.htm

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problems, progressively building a consensus, and putting forward proposalsfor decision making. Evaluation equally represents a tool of the utmostimportance. When effective, this may bring about a better response to therising complexity of urban politics, strengthen the transparency of publicaction, inform the opinions of citizens, and promote democratic debate.

The notion of governance definitively opened up a field of research thatis far from being exhaustively explored. The adaptation of the means ofpublic regulation has continued to undergo change since the beginning of thiscentury. The vocabulary is constantly being enriched with new terms, bring-ing about the renewal of mental frameworks for an understanding of emerg-ing phenomena. Governance is no longer exclusively or even primarily amere instrument for strategy, having become an end in itself, a concept forchange, and an autonomous doctrine for the practice of modernisation.

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